{"id":10,"date":"2011-04-24T02:07:53","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T02:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/?p=10"},"modified":"2011-04-24T03:19:24","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T03:19:24","slug":"milford-dispatches-d-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Milford Dispatches #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dispatches from Jay Gilchrist of the Greater <\/strong>Blackstone<\/strong> <\/strong>Valley <\/strong>Democrats<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Since I have the time and since people tell me I\u2019m the scribe of the group, I hope to put some information together and pass it on between meetings for all of you to consider over time.\u00a0 At a meeting of the Metrowest Alliance where John Walsh was presenting the results of the coordinated campaign of 2010, Kate Donaghue stood up to speak. After listening to a pot-pourri of comments that to me were not focusing much on paths going forward, rather, were going on about the problems of the past, her brief comment reduced everything to the outline we need to use going forward.<\/p>\n

Information<\/strong><\/p>\n

Communication<\/strong><\/p>\n

Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That is, I think, what we have to gather, tell each other, then educate voters till they believe it.\u00a0 As Kate Mastrioanni says, we have to concentrate the message.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s some timely information.\u00a0 Since no one as any spare time, I\u2019ve tried to lean it down from the original sources.\u00a0 You can ask me for the long version or why I think I\u2019ve gathered facts.<\/p>\n

First, full disclosure; I\u2019m a progressive leaning centrist.\u00a0 I get a bit uncomfortable with far left and right leaning Democrat\u2019s opinions, but I certainly want to hear what they say.\u00a0 I have no problem as long as they subscribe to the idea that there is still a big difference between the parties.\u00a0 Still, I can understand why our leaders have to play nice with corporate America sometimes (we will need big money until we get campaign finance reform).\u00a0 I have my fingers crossed that we\u2019ll stop short of completely selling out.<\/p>\n

Now, here\u2019s some neat stuff from the Jan\/Feb \u201910 issue of The American Prospect.\u00a0 Mark Schmitt thinks we are in the age of post literalism.\u00a0 Democrats have a chronic recurring case of policy literalism<\/em><\/strong>. It\u2019s the belief that policy should have a rational direct relationship to politics. Since even educated, newspaper reading adults have only the vaguest awareness of policy changes. It\u2019s pretty severe education problem.\u00a0 Before the midterms, 52%\u00a0 of Bloomberg responders thought taxes had gone up under Obama when they went down $240 Billion. Pew research found, two weeks after the midterms only 46 % of those surveyed knew Republicans took over the House. We have an education problem here.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0 Read the whole constitution<\/em><\/strong> – Regardless of your views on our justice system\u2019s imprisoning millions of petty criminals, who knew that the reality of fairly equal distributed forces of law enforcement is unbalanced in high crime areas.\u00a0 Victims in high crime areas are not seeing the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.\u00a0 As a result, neighborhoods teetering on the edge of stability go down the tubes. Changing this should be a progressive demand (Mark Kleiman).<\/p>\n

For a Republican, how do you gel shrinking government with the need for more police and judges when state\u2019s need more enforcement in these neighborhoods but have been tapped out for years.\u00a0 In other words, reduce my taxes, I don\u2019t see any problem \u2013 oh my god I just got stabbed<\/em>. So much to fix \u2013 finance, health care, trade imbalance<\/p>\n

Next:\u00a0 The issue has four pages summarizing where we stand in Washington.\u00a0 It\u2019s called the Progressive Agenda Score Card.\u00a0 It\u2019s a real shorthand education.\u00a0 Even more briefly, 14 goals are described. Main ones: progress so far<\/em>, spin noted<\/em>, real story noted,<\/em> what\u2019s possible and summary. <\/em>There are 3 non starters, Free Choice, Closing Guantanamo, Boosting the Economy.\u00a0\u00a0 Looks like we\u2019re stuck with low taxes for billionaires, but get a little boost for the economy.<\/p>\n

Next memo will be on some key challenges and what is remotely possible for us in the BV to do about it.<\/p>\n

My Opinion.\u00a0 What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dispatches from Jay Gilchrist of the Greater Blackstone Valley Democrats Since I have the time and since people tell me I\u2019m the scribe of the group, I hope to put some information together and pass it on between meetings for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news-blackstone-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}